ness

No hard and fast rules here, and I rarely if ever count. At the end of the day I know if it was a good one or not. I'd just as soon not handle most trout. Tricking one is fun, playing one right and bringing it in is fun. Jacking around with one in a net, trying to get a hook out and/or tippet unwound while doing as little damage as possible isn't so fun. A lot of the time I'll try and twist the hook out without netting the fish at all.

Yep. That's a great way of summing it up.

BilletHead -- I don't even know what the heck you're talking about, but that stuff looks pretty cool. Last I shot was Scout camp.

Niiiice. I gotta google the Hawkins Hat Trick -- I don't know that one.

A friend of mine once said, 'I like fly fishing because of all the cool stuff you can buy.'

Clay Self is great!

Wrench that 57 is a beauty. Gotta love those fins

mic, when you say the skirts were 'made', what do you mean? I just assumed you'd buy the material and tie it on.

Thanks for sharing that. It's true, we really do have it good. I ran into a friend of mine who's a pastor a few months ago. He led a group to Haiti and had similar stories of the unimaginable poverty. One of the things he said that really stuck with me was that they were told not to accept a baby if a parent asked them to hold it because the parents would just not come back.

Interesting that you say Driftless area. I wouldn't have made that connection, but I kinda see the similarity in topography and the looks of the stream now that you mention it. No 400 year old bridges up in IA though. What about food, drink and lodging?

Thanks FS. Yeah -- I've got a compressor coming this week for the airbrush I got. Settled on a (supposedly) quiet, tankless job with a regulator and water trap. It'll take some time to learn how to use an airbrush, I'm sure.

What -- are you blurring the ingredients so we can't figure out the recipe???? That stuff looks really good in the pot after it's mixed. Hints?

Fishing Very well stated, wrench. An awful lot of it depends on your mindset. I know folks that wouldn't even consider it because there are better ways to catch more and/or bigger fish. To me it's the complete package - a fun and challenging way to fish; more rewarding when done with a ho' made rod and fly.

Thank you, sensai. More in the works for sure, gotta make a trip to Cabela's though because I'm a little low on materials. Now I've got to get my butt out and fish them. This cool down is pretty welcome, and the three-day weekend helps. I've had a hankerin' for doing some crankbaits too....

Sa-weet! That's on the bucket list for sure. Where did you fish? How about access? I've always heard it was pretty tricky. Did you hire a ghillie, wear tweed?

Alright, I got some tails on. I have really been enjoying this. I've always kinda liked doing hand work. Did a lot of models as a kid, tie flies, make rods, whatever. Just haven't gotten into the groove lately. But BilletHead and Flysmallie have inspired me, and I've been fiddling around with cork, balsa and foam. All of these were done with acrylic craft paints or model paint, stippled with whatever (darning needles, drill bits) and coated with an epoxy finish. I'm pretty happy with the results, but I've already got some improvements in mind. Plain old cork: Foam pencil popper: More cork: Foam popper tied diver-style: Teeny popper Cork again: Ho! Nothin fancy. Turning motor lower right -- balsa zip tied on, foam tape to stick 'em into.

Gotcha

Niiice. That's what I think of when I think of gooseberries -- greenish. Looks great! I told you a while back I've got Pixwell. Here's what mine look like: But, I'm not 100% sure that's what they are. I planted 3-4 varieties and only this one survived. I THINK it's Pixwel... Anyhoo, I love 'em. We took our smallish crop and made strawberry/gooseberry jam with them.

That's quite a variety there, Jones.

One of the reasons I couldn't get through The Earth is Enough is that the descriptions of Starlight just didn't square with the area. That, and 25 pages devoted to the bus ride to -- hell, I can't remember where. It was a struggle. I may pick it back up when I'm incapacitated. I have heard good things about the book mentioned in the article though, and it's on mt Amazon wish list (with about 50 others), to be purchased and read after I catch up on my backlog of already purchased books here at the house. If anybody's read it and wants to give an opinion, the reading list is always changing. I want it to be good --

Oh man, I may have built this up a leetle too much..... Tails on tonight or in the AM.

Originally I said Corps of Discovery -- it's actually Undaunted Courage. I think the Ken Burns thing was Corps of Discovery.

BilletHead pointed me to an article about stippling that is worth a read http://www.flytier.com/stippled.pdf. There are some concepts outlined there that are real helpful.

Good perspective. Thanks for that.

Hey, Mitch -- print me off a Browning Superposed, ok? I'll send the money in advance.